Hungry Jacks AKA Burger King

What a great day so far!! The weather is gorgeous today and I took advantage of it this morning and did my morning walk to the Strand and back but i was a sweatball by the time I got back to the apt. They are painting the outside of the building so I think it is going to be one of those weeks when you aren’t sure who is going to be popping up around your balcony…..might be interesting! They were working on the opposite side this morning so we will see when they get to our side!

I walked to the chemist (drugstore) to get some stuff and found one of my favorite fragrances marked way down—Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea —yum!!! So I bought a bottle of that along with my other stuff. I kind of checked out some of the make up and it looks like I will be getting that in the US!! Geez whiz—it was $12 for a tube of mascara that would have been $4 in the US. I am pretty well supplied at the moment but maybe I can find it cheaper elsewhere. After that I went to the bookstore to look primarily for a field guide to Australian birds so I can quit bugging Mark and Thomas all the time! Found the 8th ediiton of the Graham Pizzey and Frank Knight guide that has good color pictures in it and I think it was one that Mark had recommended. Of course I forgot to double check his email before I left. Anyhoo–while I was in the bookstore this woman needed around me and so I apologized for being in the aisle and that was all it took for her to recognize a foreign accent and proceed to talk to me for 45 minutes…..it is my gift you know to attract people. The conversation started off with the advice to always wear a hat and sunscreen, get checked out once a year at the local skin cancer clinics, etc. From then it went on to a lively discussion—well more of a lecture as I hardly could get a word in edgewise—on various books, authors, the United States, her family, their religion, her thoughts on the fundamentalists at Bob Jones University, the rare strain of tapeworms that she and her family brought back from the US in 1974 after a visit which took 3 doses of medicine from the US to clear up (and she went into GREAT detail on all of this) to Australian authors she would recommend. She loved Zane Grey (Mark will appreciate that) and proceeded to tell me about almost every single book she had read. While it was entertaining I had to finally extract myself from her clutches and go to another part of the store and delay my check out until she had left the store. Whew. She was a talker! And quite an intelligent woman—she works at the university in some capacity but I was scared to ask too much as I figured I would be there another day!!!

I got my Skype thing working on my laptop pretty well now since we got a new camera and microphone for mine and I was able to talk to Ann (Yippee), Micah and my mom this morning so that helped me feel connected to everyone back home again! It really does not cost that much to call a land line or cell phone on it and the skype to skype is free so that is even better. At least I figured it out now. And I think the quality of the call is some better than it had been before so watch out—i will be calling!

i need to sort out receipts and make copies this afternoon of stuff—blah. I need to just get it all organized so it is done and in some kind of order but I just really don’t feel a lot like doing it!!! I haven’t given you words lately so I will close with that and talk to you soon!!!

suss out –find information, check out

the lot (on a hamburger) –usually lettuce, tomato, shredded carrots, a slice of beet, a slab of bacon an a fried egg

technicolor yawn—to vomit

stores—supplies (the stores were delivered to the clinic)

spider—soda with ice cream on top–like a float